What is the best way to educate internal stakeholders on Account Based Marketing in order to accurately highlight the potential benefits to the organization as a whole and to their individual teams’ functions?

This question has a lot to unpack. Influencing change takes a LOT of time, but I would recommend starting with first principles.

3 things I would start with:

• I gotta say marketing sure did a good job of marketing ourselves! However, “ABM” is not a marketing thing; it’s a holistic revenue strategy. The first thing I usually do is internally rebrand “Accunt-Based Marketing” to be a target account strategy.
• “Seek first to understand.” That will mean building relationships cross-functionally to establish trust and credibility. You’ll need key stakeholders to advocate for this strategy when you’re not in the room. Understand what’s important to those teams first: whether sales, e-staff, revenue ops, customer success, and product.
• With Sales & Customer Success: Learn how they are approaching their accounts today. What’s working well for them, what do they need help with? What account insights can you surface that they wouldn’t otherwise have?
• With Product / Product Marketing: How does the voice of the customer inform product development? What market trends are you seeing from your ICP?
• With revenue ops: Depending on the maturity of the organization, you’ll need their alignment to identify ICP criteria to build out target account lists and partner on campaign measurement. This account-centric view will require a different way of measuring traditional lead > opportunity reporting. Can we measure account engagement today?
• For Finance: You’ll need their support for any new budget, which means you’ll need to do some math to speak their language. Can you show them customer acquisition costs (CAC) for target accounts vs. non-target accounts?
• Then, you’ll likely need to show results before you tell. Introduce an experiment that you can manage without fancy technology. Start with a hypothesis around a very crisply defined account list, brainstorm with others around a mix of tactics / messages / channels that you can measure, and chip away to learn what works. Share progress often.

Account-based marketing (ABM) is not intended to be used solely by one department. It is a cross-functional company strategy with heavy influence from sales. Here are a few examples of how to gain buy-in:

• Create an ABM playbook that consolidates the feedback of collaborators, including sales, marketing, revenue operations, customer success, and other stakeholders.
• Host a lunch and learn session and walk through the playbook. Answer questions and take the time to clearly articulate the value and desired outcomes.
• Provide use cases that help tell the story of the potential of ABM and how to gauge success.
• You'll find that ongoing education is necessary as new tools and approaches emerge. Be open to answering questions and collaborating on the strategy.

By following these steps, you can effectively gain buy-in for your ABM strategy and ensure that all stakeholders understand the value and potential outcomes of the program.